words, or what seems to be the fairly accurate recollection of his
words: "One day a man who was migrating to the West, drove up in front
of my store with a wagon which contained his family and household
plunder. He asked me if I would buy an old barrel for which he had no
room in his wagon, and which he said contained nothing of special value.
I did not want it but to oblige him I bought it and paid him, I think,
a half a dollar for it. Without further examination I put it away in the
store and forgot all about it Sometime after, in overhauling things,
I came upon the barrel and emptying it upon the floor to see what it
contained, I found at the bottom of the rubbish a complete edition of
Blackstone's Commentaries. I began to read those famous works, and I had
plenty of time; for during the long summer days when the farmers were
busy with their crops, my customers were few and far between. The more I
read, the more intensely interested I became. Never in my whole life was
my mind so thoroughly absorbed. I read until I devoured them."(7)

The majesty of the law at the bottom of a barrel of trash discovered at
a venture and taking instant possession of the discoverer's mind! Like
the genius issuing grandly in the smoke cloud from the vase drawn up out
of the sea by the fisher in the Arabian tale! But this great book was
not the only magic casket discovered by the idle store-keeper, the
broken seals of which released mighty presences. Both Shakespeare and
Burns were revealed to him in this period. Never after did either for a
moment cease to be his companion. These literary treasures were found
at Springfield twenty miles from New Salem, whither Lincoln went on foot
many a time to borrow books.

His subsistence, after the failure of Berry & Lincoln, was derived from
the friendliness of the County Surveyor Calhoun, who was a Democrat,
while Lincoln called himself a Whig. Calhoun offered him the post of